Ending March 18th, Al Taylor, What are You Looking At? is a fascinating and entertaining exhibit. Exquisitely curated by the High’s Michael Rooks, I didn’t expect all three floors of the museum’s Anne Cox Chambers wing to be devoted to this idiosyncratic artist who died far too young at age 51 in 1999. Taylor’s proficiency at printmaking, sophisticated spatial sense and his droll sense of humor fuels the exhibit, drawing the viewer into his strolls along urban streets and his keen observational skills. Does anyone ever think about repurposing pet excrement? Taylor was able to achieve elegance in his Tinguely inspired constructions and sculptures that feature just that subject matter- or maybe Rube Goldberg is a more appropriate mentor.

If you’re normally bored or infuriated by text accompanying imagery, you won’t be at this show. Wall text thoughtfully informs without presuming to unveil the soul of the artist or his innermost objectives. It allows our own imaginations to be stimulated and teased by the artwork.

From the High’s website: “The High Museum of Art is organizing the first museum survey in the United States to explore the career of American artist Al Taylor (1948–1999). With more than 150 sculptures, drawings, and prints drawn from several of the artist’s major series over nearly two decades, the exhibition will reveal the crisscrossing avenues of Taylor’s artistic inquiry and his innovative use of unexpected materials.”

The museum text describes this piece as a variation in Taylor’s “wave theory series… that uses beachcombed fishing net floats to chart the sea’s movement…art historian Klaus Kertess described as ‘Malevich-cum-Lego’.

Taken as a whole with the other mixed media paintings and wall hung constructions, it’s obvious that Taylor got a kick out of assembling oddities and found throwaways into gut wrenching laughter producing art. I wasn’t the only person guffawing in the quiet of a Saturday morning visit. In comparison with similar assemblages of folk art this work presents highly considered spatial experimentation and as the information text notes, “recalibrates the structure of what the eyes see and how the mind comprehends it.”

“What I am after, is just trying to let things make themselves. That’s not as easy as it sounds. It involves devising elaborate programs, systems, and methods which break down, fall apart, and change…taking on meanings and a life outside and beyond my original intentions.” -Al Taylor.

In the first monotype above, Taylor used newspaper layering, similar to Rauschenberg’s 1950s process of printmaking. The pet stain motif continues and as the text mentions, the newspaper reminds us of puppy house-training. All too well, for this former dog owner.

The juxtaposition of this print with André Kertész’s L’Avenue Junot de la maison de Tristan Tzara of 1926 is no accident. In 1990 Taylor spent time in Paris at a friend’s apartment that overlooked the same street. Again, streams of dog urine flowing around the street’s curve captured his imagination. The text states that “Taylor’s two imaginary puddles travel in a similar arcing pathway and converge at the bottom of his composition, where their pool becomes a sequence of loops lifting from the street and suspended in the air – foreshadowing his absurdly commonsensical idea of pet stain removal.” But even knowing nothing about the print’s inspiration, one is charmed by the freeness of the linework and velvety blacks.

The text mentions that Taylor was living at Niels Borch Jensen’s print shop in Copenhagen, looked out a kitchen window and spotted an old truck tire hanging on a post set into a garbage can. Proof that Taylor didn’t wait for a monumental muse to strike, he simply used whatever presented itself at any given time of day – anywhere he happened to be. That type of artist is both familiar and rare, content to find interest and even beauty in dirt, dust and old crappy stuff lying around. If an object fell within his field of vision, Taylor utilized the moment to capture and transform. His vision just happened to be challenged (he wore glasses most of his life), but that impairment seems to have only increased his sensitivity.

The New York Times provided this obituary at the time of the artist’s death, noting that: “For many years he painted, but in 1980 he traveled to Africa and returned without enough money to buy canvas to paint on. Inspired by the way children in Africa fashioned toys out of trash, he began working with materials he found on the street. His first three-dimensional works were spare wall pieces made of broomsticks and thin wood slats that resembled skewed architectural models or functionless farm tools. He resisted calling himself a sculptor, expecting to work his way back to paint on canvas.”

No title, 1985, acrylic paint on newsprint. The Estate of Al Taylor, Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London.

Before Taylor stopped painting in 1985, he worked with acrylic on newsprint or solid grounds in the series above, possibly color studies and ideas for his future constructions.

The Besharat gallery space at 163-175 Peters Street is in the Castleberry Hill historic district of downtown Atlanta. Located in a magnificent 1875 brick and timber framed building, the gallery is a fantasy of levels and rooms filled with the owner’s private art collection. If I have the history correct, it was once home to carriage and buggy storage, supplying local industry that fronted the railroad tracks running underneath the Peters Street Bridge nearby.

Ron Saunders’ “Pivot” exhibit of his new work opened on February 9th, runs until March when most of the work will be moved to the second floor for the following month. He met me at the gallery this past Sunday and we talked about the paintings he was showing on the street floor. Most of the works were completed over the last three to four months.

Frozen Pigment Painting Series, Iterative Pairs, 1 & 2.

Partial press release: Pivot represents both Ron Saunders’ future endeavors and current art practice. Ron presents a set of new abstract paintings that expose the tension between traditional organization and uncontrolled natural forces resulting in imagery that could be coined “cataclysmic formalism”.

Along with this set of newer paintings, Ron continues his frozen pigment painting practice, which was first introduced in 2000. These works stand in opposition to the other paintings, in that they are created almost void of human intervention. These works, which are truly up to chance, are initiated by freezing water-borne paint and allowing it to melt and reconstitute over several days.

Saunders has moved around; he spent three years each in Los Angeles, New York, Seoul, South Korea, and now Atlanta. He teaches part-time at SCAD, and has an MFA from Ohio University. He considers himself a multidisciplinary artist, having engaged in performance art, media and installation.

The two sets of frozen pigment paintings on aluminum below are deceptive in the photos. In person, layering, almost flourescent chroma and dense texture can be seen. Saunders suggests that he wants to eliminate a direct hand in the pieces, although he’s obviously choosing color and location for where the paint will end up. The underlying aluminum casts a luminosity into the paint that gives the works an ethereal sheen.

Most photos courtesy of the artist.

Frozen Pigment Series, Iterations 5 & 6. Acrylic on aluminum, 32x16in

Frozen Pigment Series, Iterations 3 & 4. Acrylic on aluminum, 32x16in

When I first saw these frozen pigment works in the invitation to Saunders’ show, I was reminded of Gerhard Richter’s 2008 “Sinbad Series” that employed painting with lacquer on the back of glass. Coincidentally, the artist had helped hang a 1998 Richter exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.

Saunders has a completely different approach both technically and perhaps in his objective for the end result. At times, he uses a vat of liquid nitrogen and drips or puts dollops of paint into it, creating flash freezing. Saunders says that the process allows the medium of the paint to take precedence over the role of the mark maker.

Painting with acrylic on plywood panels, he repurposed some of his work from 2011-12, and layering from previous paintings may be glimpsed. He will begin a painting and then use Photoshop to crop and work out color corrections and overlays. In one of the paintings on plywood, he includes a spackling compound to create depth, sanding the layers as he works. He has also used Korean rice paper as a collage element in one of the paintings.

Clotho. Acrylic, hanji and ink on plywood, 54x39in

Lachesis. Acrylic on wood, 54x39in

Saunders’ titles for most of the exhibit’s paintings on wood are derived from Greek mythology, including the Fates, “three conjoined Fates, robed in white, whom Erebus begot on Night: by name Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.” My ancient Robert Graves book, The Greek Myths:1 also notes that the Fates myth may have been based on the custom of weaving family and clan marks into a new born child’s swaddling bands, allotting a place in society. Clotho is the ‘spinner’, Lachesis the ‘measurer’, Atropos is ‘she who cannot be turned, or avoided.’ He goes on to suggest that “Zeus, who weighs the lives of men and informs the Fates of his decision, can change his mind and intervene to save whom he pleases, when the thread of life, spun on Clotho’s spindle, and measured by the rod of Lachesis, is about to be snipped by Atropos’s shears.” Don’t mess with Atropos.

Atropos. Acrylic, ink, plaka and spray on plywood, 54x39in

But beyond the Fates, Saunders has included the title Chronos for one of his paintings. Chronos was in Greek mythology, the father of time, not to be confused with Kronos (or Cronus), Zeus’s Titan father, who had a bad habit of eating his newborn sons to avoid being dethroned.

The painting Ananke’s Spindle, is titled for the goddess who was the mate of Chronos, and Plato would suggest that Ananke was the mother of the Fates (the Moirai) from this union. This is in keeping with the belief that Ananke was the goddess that directed the fate of all gods and mortals. She is usually portrayed holding a spindle, her outstretched arms encompassing the world.

The Greek theme did not influence any of the paintings’ genesis, but the pieces in this show could be seen to reflect mythological and earthly conflicts. Saunders’ palette uses black with vivid primary colors, to highlight dynamic brushwork. The titling only intensifies the work’s overall dramatic impact.

Besharat backs up to 141 Mangum Street, where the original Pillow Tex mattress factory was discovered by yours truly in 1980, when it was full of sawdust, feathers and 3 floors of huge empty space. The realtor who allowed me access said the entire building could be had for $180k at the time. It has since become mostly lofts, but in the past offered space for performances and art. Back then, artist friends cohabited the spacious 7,000 square feet per floor in the 3 story building, but official records don’t note the area being developed until 1983.

The November 11th opening at artist Elyse Defoor’s new gallery EBD4 and studio space in Chamblee was well attended by Atlanta art cognoscenti. Unfortunately, flu-like symptoms prevented my going, but I caught up with Defoor the following Saturday at EBD4. The 2,000 foot space is just off Chamblee-Tucker road in the Chamblee Commons business center. Elyse has built out a salon type area, there are two large exhibition spaces and a rear area is her working studio. I was impressed with the two mammoth roll-down garage doors, that just beg for giant paintings to be hauled through them.

The invitational exhibit, titled “40 over 40”, is a tribute to artists who are mid-career or older, although a few had never shown before. “This show champions artists who continue to take risks, explore, and do the work that they are meant to do,” says curator Defoor in Buckhaven Lifestyle, and acknowledged that she chose what she liked in terms of curating the work. A few artists are mainstays on the Atlanta art scene, one small painting is by Jerry Cullum, the city’s preeminent arts critic. Many others I had met from exhibits years ago, or through the Seek ATL group, founded in 2011 by the now New York based painter Shara Hughes and Ben Steele, who still resides here.

The show includes sculpture, painting, printmaking, drawing and mixed media, photography, fiber and textile art and provides a good overview of a strong group of artists who have devoted their lives to making and creating. What stands out is the diversity of both style and mediums, but because of the thoughtfulness of the installation the entirety of the exhibit flows smoothly, and sometimes surprisingly, throughout the space. I missed a few artists in this post, please head out to Chamblee before the show ends to catch everyone’s work.

The front gallery has a small seating area.

Elyse has her studio towards the back of the space.

Some of the artists had until recently, studio spaces at the Arts Exchange on Kalb Street, now slated to be developed and transformed into “creative office” space.

Marc Brotherton, Killskreen 1.81. Acrylic and glitter on canvas. Brotherton’s glittery geometrics are a key signature in his works.

A friend recently gave me the 2010 book, Modern Women, Women Artists at MoMA, and this quote in the forward from Anne-Marie Sauzeau-Botti is a good introduction: ‘I don’t believe in “feminist art” since art is a mysterious filtering process which requires the labyrinths of a single mind, the privacy of alchemy, the possibility of exception and unorthodoxy rather than rule.’

The text also reminds us that in 1817 John Keats suggested that the ideal state of mind of the poet or artist as “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after facts and reason.” Both sentiments could describe how Anthony Greco has been making art since he devoted his life to painting back in 1966.

Currently on exhibit until November 11th at Thomas Deans Fine Art are sixteen of Greco’s minimalist paintings from 1970 to 1977. These paintings were a departure from his figurative work, he wanted to “make work that wasn’t fed by some visual object or illusion of space. I wanted them to be contained by the canvas and not imply that there was more to see outside it.” The earliest of the works were “curtain” paintings from 1970, clearly influenced by Matisse. From the gallery press release: “In the tile paintings made in the same year, the artist rejects atmosphere and illusionistic space altogether.”

The painter and professor emeritus taught painting for 40 years at the Atlanta College of Art (now Savannah College of Art and Design or SCAD). From 1976 to 1982 he was Dean of the college. Celebrating his 80th birthday this year, the energetic and youthful Greco met with me earlier this week at his second floor studio in Decatur. The space houses a few former Beacon Hill studio artists.

Greco sent handwritten notes to Thomas Deans gallery in explanation of the genesis of these large paintings on view in the exhibit, which are not necessarily minimalist in the same vein as say, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, or Robert Mangold. Greco’s work very much shows the hand of the painter with its shaky wavers, the messiness of the medium, drips evident between stripes and grids.

A few of the predominately striped paintings refer back to the painter’s early studio at 314 Luckie Street near what is now the Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. Photos are my own and some courtesy Thomas Deans Fine Art. All work in the show is oil on canvas.

Growing up in a blue collar family, his dad a truck driver, Anthony was the first in his family to go to college. He attended Catholic high school, and in his senior year the school hired an art teacher who noticed his talents and encouraged him to apply to the Cleveland Institute of Art. Greco ended up getting a half tuition scholarship. After graduating in 1960, he travelled in Europe, then started his art career in earnest after receiving a Masters of Fine Art from Kent State University. The same year he graduated, in 1966, he began teaching at the Atlanta College of Art and continued until his retirement in 2006.

Curtains #2, 1970. 76x90in

314/Ten, 1975. 68x60in

To Charles Ives, 1981. 65x81in

A later painting in the exhibit titled “To Charles Ives” (above), its calligraphic snaky lines eliciting homage or reference to Brice Marden, is an experimentation with laying rope on paint, pulling it off and scraping some areas to reveal layers of color beneath. Greco says he paints with music in the background but that the work does not usually overtly reference it. However, he is intensely interested in classical music.

He pulled out various charcoal and ink drawings on paper from flat filing bins and I was struck by how adept he is at working from life. His line work is effortless and loose in the best tradition of gestural drawing. He says he has been doing self portraits over the years and that it’s “fun to see the progression of aging.” Not sure most of us could agree to the premise, but it speaks to his love of drawing. A chiaroscuro head is an early work from his years at the Cleveland Institute of Art, he resembles a young Franz Kline.

A few of his more recent works reference politics and the second Bush presidency. A diptych (above) shows a relatively serene abstraction of a landscape (or it could be) on one panel, and on the other panel what Greco referred to as hurricane iconography – similar to the symbols one might see on The Weather Channel.

Some of his work echoes the landscape, although in his most successful pieces this has been subsumed by abstraction. Another diptych portrays a calligraphic depiction of an Abu Graib prisoner with hood, scraped into an almost black background which was very difficult to photograph. The emotional impact of this work is impossible not to grasp; the blue/black field with a brighter cobalt blue seeping through scraped areas that limned the “figure” intensely disturbing.

His patterned monotypes are developed from rectangular wooden panels into which he has drilled holes and pressed wooden pegs. On other panels, he has glued round beads, small porcelain alphabet beads, pebbles or metal chain link onto the surfaces. He uses acrylic paint and Arches paper or a similarly heavy cotton rag paper for these superbly produced prints.

His use of color is both spare and generously exuberant. It’s hard to pin him down in any one style over the decades, as he continues to change and experiment. He has returned to figurative and still life work, while also working in abstraction.

He showed me a couple of standalone painted sculptures from wood, with moving and sliding panels that formed words like “flag” or “stop”, as though a large letterpress had been dismantled and reconstituted.

A series of earlier circular paintings was inspired by looking through a kaleidoscope and painting the patterns seen projected.
Mr. Greco is a painter’s painter. His focus over the decades of teaching and raising a family has been an exultant experimentation in painting. He leaves it to the viewer to interpret and does not seek to stamp his process with any theory or philosophy. The work speaks for itself.

Anthony Greco’s work can be found in various Atlanta collections, including the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Coca-Cola, Georgia’s State Art Collection, the Mint Museum of Art, the Butler Museum of American Art, Kent State University and many private collections.

A digital version of the exhibit is available on the gallery’s website, and an E-catalog can be found here. Thomas Deans Fine Art, 690 Miami Circle NE #905, Atlanta, GA 30324. Gallery hours: Monday – Saturday, 11-5. ph: 404.814.1811

A representative from CourseHorse, a discovery and booking tool for local classes, contacted me to offer a free class in exchange for writing a review on my blog. With multiple classes in art, cooking, tech, professional, life skills, performing art, language and even classes especially for kids, it was hard to choose. Since I’ve collected blown glass for decades and Decatur Glass Blowing was on their list, I chose a 2 hour class on a friday night and made my first bowl. CourseHorse offers several other glass blowing classes in Georgia and the Atlanta area, you may find one closer to you.

Seven of us attended the one-on-one class at Decatur Glassblowing, which afforded me the chance to be taught by a veteran glassblower who had been practicing the art for 44 years. The other assistant to founder Nate Nardi’s studio was much younger, but highly skilled as well. As I chatted with my teacher, he gave me a short history lesson about glass in America. Glassblowing dates back to the 1st century BC and the Roman Empire, but quickly expanded into the Mid East and Europe.

In the early 1600s a few Germans and Poles arrived by ship to Jamestown, VA and discovered vast amounts of forests to fuel their ovens, endless sandy beaches and oyster shells for lime. A glass-house was built in 1608 and the first factory began exporting glass made in the U.S. back to England. “New Jersey and Pennsylvania had excellent sands and extensive forests, so for many years the glass houses of New Jersey dominated in glass production. To the north in Massachusetts, on the Island of Sandwich, there arose a group of glass houses and the glass produced there still bears its name.”

Bench with duckbill shears and various sized “jacks”.

Here is a more in depth glossary of tools and equipment used in glassblowing.

We first had a demo on safety issues and the steps that we’d be following during the process. Everyone wore protective safety glasses and a heat resistant arm guard was provided during the shaping of the bowls. At no time was any one of us left on our own, but the teachers also encouraged us to engage without fear. As an admitted scaredy-cat around any potential hand or eye threats, my fears proved relatively unfounded. Once the glass is heated on the end of the rod, it’s dipped into colored glass chips and rests gently for a second or two.

During the initial demonstration, my instructor uses a clamp like cutting tool to snip the hole for the opening of the bowl.

Any glass that cools down too quickly is liable to crack, so there is a slower oven for annealing or cooling down from the initial 2,000 degrees in the firing oven or “glory hole”.

Large blue Annealing or cooling oven in the background.

Heating the molten glass on the end of the blowpipe in the “glory hole”. The process of “gathering” is similar to using a dipper to take honey from a jar. Glassblowing furnaces are typically gas-powered and are heated to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Turning the rod keeps the taffy like glass rotated to maintain its shape.

CourseHorse was begun in 2011 by two NYU graduate students. After an unproductive search for a cooking class, the duo startup team of Katie Kapler and Nihal Parthasarthi won $75,000 from Stern New Venture Competition for their idea. Since then, Course Horse offers +70,000 classes to over 200,000 members in over a dozen cities around the country. They’ve also been noted in Forbes as one of America’s Most Promising Companies. Many thanks to Courtney, who signed me up!

Dragonfly.

This was a fascinating and educational class. While glassblowing is seemingly spontaneous, the skills required to produce the end results can be honed over decades. I was particularly taken with Nate’s dragonfly glass sculpture, (more bugs here) and some of his earlier grad school sandblasted abstract glass work. You’ll just have to stop by and see for yourself, since I didn’t get a photo of those last fabulous pieces. I’ll be posting my own bowl here at a later date, after I pick it up.

An open house between 5pm and 10pm is coming up this Saturday, April 29th and again on May 20th. See the studio’s Facebook page for event updates. Demos, food, music and drink are provided free of charge. Raffle tickets for giveaway items are only $1.

CourseHorse is currently still in beta mode for Atlanta, but more classes will be coming soon! Be sure to sign up with your email address and locale to receive more information on when classes near you will be available.

Finally, a 5 minute demo from Jamestown, Virginia’s Glasshouse. Visitors can see the remains of the original furnaces used by those early glassblowers and watch as modern glassblowers produce wine bottles, pitchers, candleholders and various other glass objects. Today’s glass furnaces are heated by natural gas, rather than by wood as in 1608. Glassblowers, however, use tools and methods similar to those of the 17th century.

In my old vinyl collection is the Velvet Underground’s 1967 iconic LP with Andy Warhol’s yellow banana on the cover. A song on that album written by Lou Reed, “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, is an apropos title for the inaugural exhibit this April of the new Atlanta westside gallery, Hathaway David Contemporary, or HD for short. New York painter and founder Michael David and co-founder Laura Hathaway launched the space with an opening, that despite torrential rains, drew about 800 attendees, including Atlanta artists, writers and curators, museum directors and a few of the Brooklyn artists who traveled for the show.

The show was a mix of artists from Michael’s former Brooklyn based Life on Mars gallery along with Atlanta artists that he has also shown. Unfortunately, he recently announced that the New York gallery would be closing this year. David taught at both SCAD in Atlanta and also at the Atlanta Fine Arts Atelier that he founded here in 2002.

His new westside gallery is 8,700 square feet huge, with high ceilings and polished floors, an imposing glass garage door and plenty of storage space. I attended the opening and returned on a Saturday when Anna, the very pleasant gallery assistant, answered questions and graciously showed me some of the paintings that were being held for the upcoming Re-Hang exhibit that will open next week on June 16th.

This is a highly condensed version of the show. Don’t miss the opening next thursday to view the entire exhibit.

I know some of the Brooklyn artists in the show, like Loren Munk and Farrell Brickhouse, only through social media. I was happy to finally meet Farrell in person, along with Mary DeVincentis, at the opening. My 2009 interview with Loren Munk was precipitated by seeing his YouTube videos online, under his alter persona, the James Kalm report. I became Facebook friends with Farrell back in 2010 and have enjoyed his daily postings of his thickly painted figurative abstracts.

The prolific and self-taught Dial died this past January. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns 13 of his works. Dial once told Atlanta collector William Arnett that ““Art is like a bright star up ahead in the darkness of the world…”

The two painters in this exhibit through Saturday May 21 at Thomas Deans gallery on Miami Circle offer similarities only in their obvious command of their mediums. Photos of individual works courtesy of Thomas Deans Fine Art.

The press release offers this synopsis: Scott Upton creates abstract paintings that sometimes project the atmosphere of landscape. Cathryn Miles creates landscapes that border on geometric abstractions. Both artists display a rare mastery of color and form.

Cathryn Miles works with a palette knife and brush in broad planed strokes in a mostly horizontal or square format. “Abstract shapes, aerial perspective, flat patterning, and traditional perspective have all contributed to my developing style”, writes Miles. It’s satisfying to see paint handled so well, Miles boldly slabs her canvases with pigment. She states in her bio that she has been influenced by Diebenkorn, German Expressionism and the Bay Area figurative artists that include David Park and Elmer Bischoff. She has also spent time over the past six years in Oaxaca, Mexico. While most of her work in this exhibition has an intensely blue palette, I am curious whether Oaxaca native and renowned painter Rufino Tamayo and his brilliant reds and oranges will at some point surface and creep into the color spectrum of her work.

Miles has an MFA from the University of Houston and a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art. She taught design and color theory at Kennesaw State University’s School of Art and Design from 1994 to 2004, and has taught painting and design at both Georgia Perimeter College and the Art Institute of Atlanta. Now that Miles has retired, she is painting full time, find her site here. She has been exhibiting in Atlanta for many years and is represented by Thomas Deans here.

By the Water, oil on canvas 48×48 inches

Embankment, oil on canvas 48×48 inches

An extremely competent colorist, Miles judiciously uses cadmium red for emphasis along a diagonal or horizontal plane.

Freshwater Well, oil on canvas 48×48 inches

Morning Heat 2, oil on canvas 30×48 inches

Morning Heat is one of the few paintings in this exhibit that breaks from Miles’ azure/cobalt/ultramarine palette to offer more oranges, ochres and earthy greens that echo Diebenkorn’s series of work from New Mexico. Whether the painting was created in Oaxaca is not noted, but it would be intriguing to see more in this vein.

Night Sky, 1 oil on canvas 12×12 inches

Swept Up, oil on canvas 12×12 inches

Miles’ darker gestural slashes serve to divide and determine horizon, sky, and land in the broad forms of these landscapes, much like Richard Diebenkorn’s diagonal thrusts from his Berkeley series.

Water Over the Bridge, oil on canvas 24×24 inches

Scott Upton has had his work featured in film and television, with a history of exhibiting in Atlanta and the Southeast since the late 1970s. His almost meditative paintings elicit comparisons to Mark Rothko and JMW Turner’s late abstractions. As with those artists and more contemporary ones like artist Olafur Eliasson (who based a series of color experiments on Turner’s work), Upton agrees on the importance of luminosity: “For me, light is the unifying force, transforming everything it touches by banishing darkness and encouraging renewal.” Upton explores an existential realm in these calm works, suggesting that “in addition to the beauty”, light can offer feelings of hope and peace.

One is drawn in close to discover texture and layers of colors in the works that elude from a distance. Red flecks might appear in an underlayer, while the topmost layer seems to have been scraped and sanded down. Upton’s multiple layers of acrylic paint both conceal and reveal reflective silver and gold leaf through his proprietary varnish. I haven’t witnessed this with his work since I was only at the gallery during an afternoon, but during different times of day, the reflective properties might add to changes in hue. Although he claims to paint fairly quickly, the work demands contemplation and a break from the multitasking that is ubiquitous in most lives today.

Upton has a website showing his painting, with reviews from both Atlanta based art critic Jerry Cullum and Richard Maschal, author and retired arts and architecture critic for the Charlotte Observer.

Scott Upton received his BFA from the University of North Carolina and attended the Art Institute of Atlanta. He has exhibited at the Asheville Art Museum in North Carolina and the Art Institute of Atlanta. His work is in many collections, including the Knoxville (TN) Museum of Art, Four Seasons Hotel, Atlanta, the Arthur Blank Foundation in Atlanta, Northside Hospital of Atlanta and the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. He is also represented by Thomas Deans Fine Art in Atlanta.

Some paintings smack you in the face with emotionalism and raw energy. More controlled painting, like the works in this show, demands an almost meditative attention. It helps to devote time to looking and looking again; put away that cell phone, forget about texting. Go back for a review on another day. The reward will be an immersion in contrasts.

Thomas Deans always offers interesting and thoughtful exhibits at his gallery on Miami Circle. In this show titled Still + Life, two painters focus on still life and place. Stephen Pentak zeroes on a particular landscape of trees, often including water and horizon. Sydney Licht spins the mundane into voluptuous masses of color that transform ordinary objects, much like Cezanne’s bowls of fruit. Both artists transcend their subject matter with their considerable skill and exceptional attention to the craft of painting. Paint becomes poetry for these two painters.
The show is up until November 14. Photos of individual works courtesy of Thomas Deans Fine Art.

From the gallery’s site: The exhibition Still + Life presents paintings by Stephen Pentak and Sydney Licht, two highly regarded painters whose work explores the relationship between paint, form, and image. Both painters are thoroughly contemporary; both have developed unique and recognizable styles and have earned significant reputations; yet both work with traditional media, using established genres as a springboard to personal exploration.

I spoke briefly with Sydney Licht during the opening. She has a studio in Tribeca in NYC, and at one time taught at Ohio State University, where Pentak is Professor Emeritus. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to chat with Stephen.

Still Life with Sweet and Low. Oil on linen, 12″x12″

A successful artist who has been showing and painting for some time, Ms. Licht is remarkably accessible. Her skill with paint and texture is evident and while the small works are obviously still lifes, her forms abstract and flatten planes. She achieves volume with juxtapositions of highly keyed color and occasionally adds small touches of patterns to the work. I mentioned an echo of Cézanne in her two still lifes of flowers in a striped vase, reminiscent of his portrait of his wife posed in her green striped dress. She admitted to a great affection for his work and to that of Vuillard, one of Les Nabis who also used pattern to his advantage.

Still Life with Flowers. Oil on panel, 12″x9″

Still Life with Flowers. Oil on linen, 24″x18″

Painting without much medium and no varnish, Ms. Licht succeeds in keeping her colors both distinctly clear and matte. Whether working on birch panels or linen, I was struck by the exquisite craft of her work. On unframed works, the edges are at least two inches deep and left bare, no gesso to mar the beauty of the raw linen or wood.

Still Life with Three Bundles. Oil on linen, 12″x12″

Licht has said in interviews that she limits her palette to essential colors, eliminated black many years ago and is interested in understanding color by using very little of it. She says: “At one point I asked myself, “Can I make a monochromatic still life with just slightly tinted hues of white?” Right after that, I really wanted to see how far I could go in pushing color intensity so the palette expanded to include a fluorescent yellow.”

One can see Morandi in her structure, but Licht’s colors are jazzed up and richer, more like the Fauvists. We also talked a little about how much we both like the Bay Area Figurative painters, who weren’t shy about using high chroma. She says she begins with a palette knife to establish the idea for a color and plane and refines from there.

Still Life with Fat Quarters. Oil on linen, 10″x10″

Still Life with Coffee and Tea. Oil on panel, 16″x12″

A wonderful 2012 interview with Sydney Licht by Neil Plotkin, discussing her history and process of working can be found at Painting Perceptions. She is represented by Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York and is also a member of the still life group Zeuxis.

Stephen Pentak’s oils on paper, my favorite of his pieces in the show, have an almost Japanese feel in the brushwork and an emphasis on negative space. His muted colors can be deceiving until a closer look reveals the intensity of a dark cobalt teal contrasted with a dusky lavender or cobalt blue. He states that he uses a palette knife along with wide brushes, and often paints an allover ochre as a ground for the works. Scraping with the knife reveals the tonal base and gives a subtle luminosity to the paintings.

Closeup – Landscape 2015.1.2. Oil on paper, 42″x30″ (paper size)

Landscape 2015.1.2. Oil on paper, 42″x30″ (paper size)

Landscape 2015.8.1. Oil on paper, 26″x 40″ (paper size)

Pentak’s larger oils on wood panels show multiple glazing and scumbling, that adds to the depth. The geometry of rectangles seems to be a basis for the work, along with reflections in bodies of water that can be found in most of the paintings. An eloquent review of a 2003 exhibit by Richard Roth gets to the heart of Pentak’s work and can be found on his site here.

Brian Rutenberg gave an artist’s talk on Saturday, April 25, after the prior night’s opening for his show at Timothy Tew Gallery in Atlanta.

Rutenberg’s large abstract paintings are pure beauty and luscious paint. The artist isn’t afraid of color and he favors using generous amounts of paint, slabbed onto the Belgian linen he uses, with his hand or palette knife. During his talk he reminisced about growing up in Myrtle Beach and the lowlands of South Carolina. “Humidity made me a painter”, he said. Attuned to color as a child, he would bury his head in azalea bushes, breathing in his southern heritage.

“Nightcrawler” below, 55″x 68″, 2015. Photo courtesy Tews Gallery.

At twelve, Rutenberg copied Manet’s sea battle paintings in an effort to learn spatial displacement. He spoke of building virtual rocks out of pillows to duplicate the way that Manet placed his objects in the paintings. Rutenberg’s tactile paintings depict place. While he may appear to be an abstractionist, he realizes the sky and earth as standard conventions for a landscape painter, and isn’t hesitant to admit to the same thing in his own work.

In the talk, Rutenberg stated that it’s important for a painter to define his/her “job”, and to craft a place in which to do that. The fact that “no one cares” is a liberating premise for any artist, mistakes are inevitable. Rutenberg cherishes the notion of failure and says that success, to him, is defined by curiosity and effort. “Every painting fails before it gets better… and it never looks the way it does in my mind….you have to screw up if you want to be a painter. Do everything you can within a series of limitations.” He also insists that too much technique or too much intellectualism, as well as too much “craziness”, doesn’t work. His affability betrays a dedicated workmanship in both the craft of painting and in the intensity of his ambition; Rutenberg has shown yearly since the late 1980s, after receiving his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

His influences are surprising; he admitted that Thomas Gainsborough is one of his favorite painters, with Tiepolo another influence. The Canadian Group of Seven was more obvious to my mind, at least for his color palette, along with the Scottish Colorists. He didn’t mention Hans Hoffmann, who seems a natural influence based on Rutenberg’s juxtapositions and rectangles of vivid and bright color. I also find some Diebenkorn similarities in swatches of odd colors – like a pink flesh tone in a horizon that is framed by ochre on the left with smaller red and acid green rectangles on the opposite vertical side that ring almost of Klimt. This particular painting (below) was not featured in the show, but it’s worth noting for Rutenberg’s versatility of palette.

Fascinating as well, is his affection for the pianist Glenn Gould, whose quote can be found his website: “The purpose of art is the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” Rutenberg’s works commissioned by the Glenn Gould Foundation are more circular in composition, and quite different from the more current vertically striated paintings. He does not elaborate on which of Gould’s interpretations he favors.

While Rutenberg doesn’t usually paint on site, he does make sketches that he rarely shows. And although he calls himself a landscape painter, I detect a symbolism in the pictorial haze that permeates the mid part of his canvases. He mentioned the quality of light that came through the Spanish moss hanging on the trees of that southern home. The softening serves as a contrast to the harsher edges of what may be a response to a more dense, urban landscape. Rutenberg has lived in New York City since he was 21, and has his studio there.

Some of his works are bright, pop in your face vivid. Others seem moodier, with dark undercurrents of tonal values. The current paintings in this show offer a complex palette; juxtapositions of muddied earth tones and rusted oranges with fantastic jewel like reds and violets, which segue into deep and mysterious dark teals.

Brian’s studio in New York City.

You can find more of Rutenberg’s work on his website and a 2011 review by critic Diane Thodos on the blog artcritical.com.

Rutenberg offers videos about his process here. Timothy Tew’s gallery can be found in the Peachtree Hills neighborhood of Atlanta.

The Mutter Virtuosi Tour 2014 – Anne Sophie Mutter with young students from her Foundation rocked Emory’s Schwartz Center last night, playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Mendelssohnn’s String Octet in E-flat Major, op. 20.

She began the performance with Sebastian Currier‘s “Ringtone Variations”, Roman Patkolo accompanying her on double bass. Mutter had commissioned the piece, which Currier dedicated to her. Resplendent in a sequined gold top, black clingy capris and a pair of impossibly high black patent stilettos, Mutter is the glam queen of classical music.

As one of the perks of being a volunteer usher, it was a special treat to see a beautiful harpsichord on stage being tuned before the audience arrived. Exquisitely played by Knut Johannessen, he has been touring with Mutter since 1999 and is founder and artistic leader of the Oslo Baroque Orchestra.

The audience rewarded Mutter and her young virtuosi with two standing ovations, they gave an absolutely electric performance.